Freezing the subject without getting cold!

Robin photo Elizabeth Tyler © 2012

Finding subject matter on a cold December day in Sweden isn't always easy, especially since the number of daylight hours is very limited. Although I enjoy plein air painting and always prefer to do most of the work on location, there are days when it's simply not practical. Taking reference photos for later use is of course a good solution and one many artists resort to. Its not cheating as long as they are your own photos. In order to paint birds a good camera is almost a must. But even so it still requires sitting for hours in the freezing cold waiting for the right moment.
Believe it or not, the photograph on the left is taken through the window while I sit in the warmth of my kitchen. It still requires hours of waiting but at least I could sit in comfort.
Firstly I arranged the scene by placing logs and stones on a baking tray filled with water. This was put outside the window on a garden table so the height was suitable for the camera tripod. I waited for the water to freeze then sprinkled bird food on the logs as bait.
Inside the kitchen I rigged up a black curtain to minimise reflections and hide the camera which I stuck through a hole in the material. I connected the camera to the computer with the remote shooting function and waited for the right moment. And waited...
Hundreds of photos later I managed to get this one plus a handful more. I don't know if I will actually use it as reference for a painting yet or maybe it's best as a Christmas card.

Taking photos from the comfort of the kitchen

Cover illustration

Refelections, watercolour 35 x 46 cm 

 I have just been informed that my watercolour painting "Reflections" has been chosen as the cover illustration for the book "Festival of writing 2012" a collage of writing edited by Debi Alper. The festival is arranged each year by Writers Workshop, the world's leading consultancy for first time writers, started by the well known writer Harry Bingham. The festival hosts some of Britain's best-selling authors and publishers. So I am very honoured to have one of my works on the cover of the book.

Art blogs targeted by dishonest spammers!

"Sharron Davidson", Austin Texas,
Pinner on Pinterest with a
keen interest in art

Unfortunately I have had to enable comments moderation, so from now on no comment will be published without my consent. This isn't because I only want positive comments! but because my blog is being bombarded with spam from "Peter Pascal" and "Scott Davidson", not their real names of course. By googling a sentence in one of the comments I've had, I found out that they send thousands of computer generated comments to art bloggers. They pretend to be interested in your art and then have the audacity to write that it's better to buy another artist's reproduction from their company's website Wahooart. There you can choose between hundreds of awful reproductions in any size or colour. When I googled Wahooart I found it on Pinterest represented by a Pinner called Sharron Davidson with a very glamorous profile picture. She has 38 boards, with 541 pins all from Wahooart. When I did an image search of "her" profile picture it turned out to be a photograph of a Bollywood actress called Sonali Bendre! I wonder if anyone would want to buy anything from a company represented by dishonest people with false profiles? I suspect Sharron Davidson, Peter Pascal and Scott Davidson are one and the same person. So to all serious, hard working artists with blogs I would like to give this advice: Enable comments moderation and don't allow any comments to be published without your consent! If you are on Pinterest, don't support this glamorous art lover by following her!

Bollywood actress Sonli Bendre
 http://www.mid-day.com/imagedata/2012/jul/Sonali-Bendre.jpg

Colours in Autumn

September Shore, lithograph 27 x 40 cm © Elizabeth Tyler

Now the leaves are turning colour adding a little warmth to the chilly autumn air. I made this lithograph to depict a combination of two of my favourite subjects, an autumn leaf and a pebble beach. The eight transparent colours I used created numerous nuances where they overlapped each other.
The colours were:
Ultramarine blue
Cobalt blue
Hookers Green
Yellow
Sepia
Crimson red
Vermillion red
Black

Red Cabbage

Red cabbage watercolour 57 x 77 cm © Elizabeth Tyler 

I've had a request asking me to show which colours I used in my painting "Red Cabbage" featured in the downloadable video A closer look at watercolour painting techniques on "Mindbites".

Colours used in Red Cabbage

All the colours are artist quality from Winsor and Newton and apart from Paynes grey they are in tubes. The reason I use tubes is because my paintings are normally quite large so I mix suitable portions of diluted colour in pots. You can extend the life of expensive brushes a lot by dipping them into diluted colour instead of wearing the bristles down on half-dry tablets.
Paynes grey is the exception though because the intensity of this colour is stronger in tablet form.
The other colours used for this painting were:
Cadmium yellow,
Ultramarine violet,
Cerulean Blue,
Winsor blue (red shade)
Sap green,
Pthalo turquiose,
Quincridone Magenta
and Winsor green ( yellow shade)
Here's a link to W&N's colour chart (no I'm not a shareholder!)
colour chart
If you want to see all the techniques involved in the painting of Red Cabbage, the whole video is available full screen HD (streaming) or on DVD. (PAL or NTSC) as part of the 75 min video  Watercolour Realism produced on license by Pulsar Productions, Australia.

A windy day

"A windy day" lithograph 27 x 40 cm
© Elizabeth Tyler 2010

"After a windy day" lithograph 27 x 40 cm
© Elizabeth Tyler 2010

It's autumn again and the old apple tree we have in the garden is shedding apples and leaves in the wind. I love  the interesting structure of the tree trunk with it's layers of crusty bark. It's taken over 70 years for the tree to reach this stage of maturity and not unlike most humans it has great character with the ripe old age. From a distance the trunk looks a nondescript brownish grey but a closer study reveals all shades of green, blue, orange, umber and red.
For each of these lithographs I made eight drawings, one for each colour. You can see the whole printing process with some of my previous works here: From drawing to lithographic print
Best to watch  in HD ( 720p )

angela-calmuc

angela-calmuc..

Autumn on it's way

Autumn leaves     watercolour © Elizabeth Tyler

I was inspired to paint this watercolour on a windy day at the beach a couple of years ago. When I came home I reconstructed the scene in the studio. It was important to get the light and shadows right so I used only one light source (a daylight lamp) and suspended the flying leaf up with a fishing line.

Facebook page

I've now created a Facebook page for my work as an artist where you can keep on track with my current projects, large and small. It's a good platform for smaller notices that are not so time consuming, neither to  read nor write ;-)
If you don't have facebook, don't worry I will still be posting more detailed information regularly here on the blog.

The page is here:  Elizabeth Tyler- artist

When you get to my facebook page, please click on the "like" tab (under my hand in the banner picture) if you want to see my coming updates on Facebook.

Finished blackbird

Blackbird  watercolour 47 x 74 cm © Elizabeth Tyler 2012

Today the blackbird painting is finished. I had been thinking of painting a diffuse background or just a suggestion of something in the distance but then I thought it was better without. As it is now the white background enhances the contrast as you see the bird against the light.
I paid a lot of attention to the leaves in the foreground as they are nearest and I wanted to give you the feeling they are almost touching your nose. To achieve this it was necessary to draw them from life since they were out of focus in my reference photograph.
I painted yellow as a base colour over the whole shape and when that was dry concentrated sap green was added. While the green was still wet I covered it with wrinkled cling film and left it to dry completely. When the cling film was removed there was a very leafy structure all over the shapes which looked great as it was but still needed suggestions of light and shadow. The uppermost leaf is seen from below so it has a slightly different texture and colour. Here I added a layer of Pthalo blue and, after drying time, yet another layer of light opaque yellow. Again cling film was used while the yellow was wet.  I then added deep shadows with a mixture of Paynes grey and Pthalo blue and finally created the light lines of the veins by scrubbing with a tiny hog hair brush.

The cauliflower effect

The blackbird itself was painted with concentrated Paynes grey and I dropped water onto the surface while the colour was still wet. This creates a cauliflower effect which can be difficult to control, but it helps to hold your breath!
I used masking fluid for the straws of grass and painted the shadows between them first. After the fluid was removed I added different shades of green, taking care to render the light with thinner layers where the blades of grass turn upwards. Finally the darker shadow under the bird was added with a thin wash of Paynes grey applied with a wide hake brush.

Blackbird

 Blackbird, watercolour  47 x 74 cm © Elizabeth Tyler

I have been fascinated by birds recently, I suppose because most of them are shy and unapproachable, this makes me want to get near enough to study them even more. Directly after each shower of rain this blackbird would walk around the garden looking for worms. It was so eager and concentrated that it chose to ignore me. I followed it around with my camera and photographed it at a low viewpoint with a  200mm lens. I took about 40 pictures of it before I was satisfied there would be enough reference material for a watercolour.  Although I mostly prefer to paint from life, it's not always possible and then I take photographs as reference. I never use anyone else's photographs as I feel the creative process must be my own right from the beginning.
In this watercolour I played around with the so called cauliflower effect that many artists try to avoid. This is what happens when you add water to a wet painted surface. The water pushes the pigment away as it spreads out.  The effect can be taken advantage of in certain subjects like this where it resembles feathers.

Painting depth in acrylics

This is an acrylic painting which I have been working on for some time. In it I have experimented with different techniques to create an illusion of depth and distance. By merging the brush strokes and making soft transitions between colours, an impression of unsharp focus can be achieved. This I did with the rocks in the background.
The brush strokes in the middle ground are also loosened up and there are layers of translucent colour overlapping each other, there is intentionally no attention to detail here as that would only add confusion to the composition.
A close up view of this looks completely abstract but at a distance you can see the wet, flat stone.





Every time I paint water it's a new challenge. This time it was the bubbles and transparent, small waves that I wanted to describe. You can see the seaweed and some pebbles under the surface. The colours of these are toned down and the absence of sharp edges helps to give the impression of something a little diffuse, as seen through water.

                                           







 The surface texture on the stone in the foreground is made by flicking and 
 spattering different colours on with a toothbrush.
  I wanted to accentuate the roughness of the stone in contrast to the soft flowing

  water. This, I feel, creates an interesting dialogue within the painting. 

I love to indulge in details and I could hardly wait to revel in them. By painting the stone's surface with all the numerous spots, cracks and crevasses, it became the focal point I wanted it to be.

Painting on my floating studio in Greece

Right now I am in Greece on our small sailing boat "Aquarella". I have all my painting materials on board and the subject matter is right there for the taking. As nearly always in a new place, the first painting I make is of the obvious; like "Sunset-Over-The-Sea" sort of thing. When I've done that it will be time for some more serious work. But in the mean time I would like to try to add some originality to the painting of this obvious subject. Everyone knows that "the sunset over the sea" is beautiful but so what? Everyone takes pictures of it, every evening all over the world  so why bother to paint it? I suppose the challenge is to capture an impression and render it in a way that is unique and that no one has ever seen before despite the millions of sunset pics being taken everyday. But I don't really need to take up such an ambitious challenge at all, I might just choose to paint something for myself as a memory of a beautiful evening.

Breaking the old rules of watercolour.

I've just uploaded a new video to youtube about the techniques I used in my watercolour painting "A study in green" This is actually a one minute preview of the video I have on Mindbites called "Breaking the old rules of watercolour"

In the 26 minute video I demonstrate in detail how this watercolour was made, using mostly unconventional techniques. I worked on it both outdoors on location and at the studio.  Breaking many of the old rules of watercolour painting is something I enjoy doing, it is after all the result that matters. 

I don't know whoever made all these rigid rules of watercolour. As a creative person I hate being told what to do or how to do it. By using a little imagination (isn't that what an artist has?) many different tools, materials and methods can be used to achieve the result you want. And why not?

In the video I show and explain: My way of using masking fluid.

The use of different brushes, pens, sponges, colour shapers, kitchen roll, watersoluble pencils, cutter blades, stencils, saucepan scrubbers, plastic bags and clingfilm.

Not to mention the totally forbidden opaque white!

The whole video can be seen at here http://www.mindbites.com/lesson/19739-breaking-the-old-rules-of-watercolour

Warning: competitions based on facebook "likes"

I'm a bad loser I know, and perhaps a little naïve at times. I really thought I had a chance of winning the W&N prize for the best painting video but I didn't. The strange thing is that I did have the best rating but my competitor on the finishing line suddenly had the most facebook LIKES. Perhaps I'm stupid but I thought that the competition was based on quality and not necessarily on the amount of facebook friends. I'm not saying this was done, but I was shocked to find out that its possible to BUY facebook likes when participating in a competition. Look here!!!!!!
http://royalserviceteam.com/tag/buy-facebook-friends-for-voting-contests
Thanks to all my sincere  friends for voting for me anyway. I'm perhaps a little wiser now...

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A study in green

Elizabeth Tyler adding the last details to her watercolour.

I've been spending some time on the beach in the early hours of the morning before the sun creates hard contrasts. I love getting really close to my subject when painting watercolours but it's not always possible, and when the wind gets up I usually get wet feet.

In Scandinavia the sea has a completely different colour compared to the bright turquoise and deep ultramarine of the Mediterranean. It's usually a subtle mixture of greys, greens and pale blues here. As a focal point I chose a stone adorned with bright green moss right on the water's edge. The wet moss added an element of vibrancy to the otherwise subdued tones of the sea in the early morning light.

It took several days to paint this subject, so some of the work was done back in the studio. Even though I’m not always able to spend the whole painting session on location I like at least to start and finish the painting there.
 

"Green Sea"  watercolour 34 x 57 cm © Elizabeth Tyler 2012